Books and Bookmen [9]
(1685), George
Speedwell is put down as "a merry begot;" Anne Twine is "filia
uniuscujusque." At Croydon, a certain William is "terraefilius"
(1582), an autochthonous infant. Among the queer names of
foundlings are "Nameless," "Godsend," "Subpoena," and "Moyses and
Aaron, two children found," not in the bulrushes, but "in the
street."
The rule was to give the foundling for surname the name of the
parish, and from the Temple Church came no fewer than one hundred
and four foundlings named "Temple," between 1728 and 1755. These
Temples are the plebeian gens of the patrician house which claims
descent from Godiva. The use of surnames as Christian names is
later than the Reformation, and is the result of a reaction against
the exclusive use of saints' names from the calendar. Another
example of the same reaction is the use of Old Testament names, and
"Ananias and Sapphira were favourite names with the Presbyterians."
It is only fair to add that these names are no longer popular with
Presbyterians, at any rate in the Kirk of Scotland. The old Puritan
argument was that you would hardly select the name of too notorious
a scriptural sinner, "as bearing testimony to the triumph of grace
over original sin." But in America a clergyman has been known to
decline to christen a child "Pontius Pilate," and no wonder.
Entries of burials in ancient times often contained some
biographical information about the deceased. But nothing could
possibly be vaguer than this: "1615, February 28, St. Martin's,
Ludgate, was buried an anatomy from the College of Physicians."
Man, woman, or child, sinner or saint, we know not, only that "an
anatomy" found Christian burial in St. Martin's, Ludgate. How much
more full and characteristic is this, from St. Peter's-in-the-East,
Oxford (1568): 'There was buried Alyce, the wiff of a naughty
fellow whose name is Matthew Manne.' There is immortality for
Matthew Manne, and there is, in short-hand, the tragedy of "Alyce
his wiff." The reader of this record knows more of Matthew than in
two hundred years any one is likely to know of us who moralise over
Matthew! At Kyloe, in Northumberland, the intellectual defects of
Henry Watson have, like the naughtiness of Manne, secured him a
measure of fame. (1696.) "Henry was so great a fooll, that he never
could put on his own close, nor never went a quarter of a mile off
the house," as Voltaire's Memnon resolved never to do, and as Pascal
partly recommends.
What had Mary Woodfield done to deserve the alias which the Croydon
register gives her of "Queen of Hell"? (1788.) Distinguished people
were buried in effigy, in all the different churches with which they
were connected, and each sham burial service was entered in the
parish registers, a snare and stumbling-block to the historian.
This curious custom is very ancient. Thus we read in the Odyssey
that when Menelaus heard in Egypt of the death of Agamemnon he
reared for him a cenotaph, and piled an empty barrow "that the fame
of the dead man might never be quenched." Probably this old usage
gave rise to the claims of several Greek cities to possess the tomb
of this or that ancient hero. A heroic tomb, as of Cassandra for
example, several towns had to show, but which was the true grave,
which were the cenotaphs? Queen Elizabeth was buried in all the
London churches, and poor Cassandra had her barrow in Argos,
Mycenae, and Amyclae.
"A drynkyng for the soul" of the dead, a [Greek text] or funeral
feast, was as common in England before the Reformation as in ancient
Greece. James Cooke, of Sporle, in Norfolk (1528), left six
shillings and eightpence to pay for this "drynkyng for his soul;"
and the funeral feast, which long survived in the distribution of
wine, wafers, and rosemary, still endures as a slight collation of
wine and cake in Scotland. What a funeral could be, as late as
1731, Mr. Chester Waters proves by the bill for the burial of Andrew
Card, senior bencher of Gray's Inn. The deceased was brave in a
"superfine pinked shroud"
Speedwell is put down as "a merry begot;" Anne Twine is "filia
uniuscujusque." At Croydon, a certain William is "terraefilius"
(1582), an autochthonous infant. Among the queer names of
foundlings are "Nameless," "Godsend," "Subpoena," and "Moyses and
Aaron, two children found," not in the bulrushes, but "in the
street."
The rule was to give the foundling for surname the name of the
parish, and from the Temple Church came no fewer than one hundred
and four foundlings named "Temple," between 1728 and 1755. These
Temples are the plebeian gens of the patrician house which claims
descent from Godiva. The use of surnames as Christian names is
later than the Reformation, and is the result of a reaction against
the exclusive use of saints' names from the calendar. Another
example of the same reaction is the use of Old Testament names, and
"Ananias and Sapphira were favourite names with the Presbyterians."
It is only fair to add that these names are no longer popular with
Presbyterians, at any rate in the Kirk of Scotland. The old Puritan
argument was that you would hardly select the name of too notorious
a scriptural sinner, "as bearing testimony to the triumph of grace
over original sin." But in America a clergyman has been known to
decline to christen a child "Pontius Pilate," and no wonder.
Entries of burials in ancient times often contained some
biographical information about the deceased. But nothing could
possibly be vaguer than this: "1615, February 28, St. Martin's,
Ludgate, was buried an anatomy from the College of Physicians."
Man, woman, or child, sinner or saint, we know not, only that "an
anatomy" found Christian burial in St. Martin's, Ludgate. How much
more full and characteristic is this, from St. Peter's-in-the-East,
Oxford (1568): 'There was buried Alyce, the wiff of a naughty
fellow whose name is Matthew Manne.' There is immortality for
Matthew Manne, and there is, in short-hand, the tragedy of "Alyce
his wiff." The reader of this record knows more of Matthew than in
two hundred years any one is likely to know of us who moralise over
Matthew! At Kyloe, in Northumberland, the intellectual defects of
Henry Watson have, like the naughtiness of Manne, secured him a
measure of fame. (1696.) "Henry was so great a fooll, that he never
could put on his own close, nor never went a quarter of a mile off
the house," as Voltaire's Memnon resolved never to do, and as Pascal
partly recommends.
What had Mary Woodfield done to deserve the alias which the Croydon
register gives her of "Queen of Hell"? (1788.) Distinguished people
were buried in effigy, in all the different churches with which they
were connected, and each sham burial service was entered in the
parish registers, a snare and stumbling-block to the historian.
This curious custom is very ancient. Thus we read in the Odyssey
that when Menelaus heard in Egypt of the death of Agamemnon he
reared for him a cenotaph, and piled an empty barrow "that the fame
of the dead man might never be quenched." Probably this old usage
gave rise to the claims of several Greek cities to possess the tomb
of this or that ancient hero. A heroic tomb, as of Cassandra for
example, several towns had to show, but which was the true grave,
which were the cenotaphs? Queen Elizabeth was buried in all the
London churches, and poor Cassandra had her barrow in Argos,
Mycenae, and Amyclae.
"A drynkyng for the soul" of the dead, a [Greek text] or funeral
feast, was as common in England before the Reformation as in ancient
Greece. James Cooke, of Sporle, in Norfolk (1528), left six
shillings and eightpence to pay for this "drynkyng for his soul;"
and the funeral feast, which long survived in the distribution of
wine, wafers, and rosemary, still endures as a slight collation of
wine and cake in Scotland. What a funeral could be, as late as
1731, Mr. Chester Waters proves by the bill for the burial of Andrew
Card, senior bencher of Gray's Inn. The deceased was brave in a
"superfine pinked shroud"